


Contents of a File Folder

by SpaceWall



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Epistolary, Lemony’s Typewriters, Love Letters, Marriage Proposal, Multi, Romance, Sad and Happy, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: A series of documents collected for the purpose of delivery to Violet Baudelaire on the occasion of her 18th Birthday in the unlikely event of the untimely deaths of both her parents.





	Contents of a File Folder

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my post for the week, nobody freak out I’m just having a grand old time and nobody can convince me that these three weren’t all in love.

The following is a description of the contents of a yellowish-brown file folder with the name ‘Violet’ clearly printed in the top right hand corner, to be given to one Violet Baudelaire on the occasion of her eighteenth birthday. 

First, a note, in her mother’s careful handwriting, which reads as follows: 

My Dear Violet, 

If you are reading this, then we have died before you have turned eighteen. I am sorry. There is so much we have not told you. Hopefully, you will have figured much of that out for yourselves. There is very little in the world that cannot be learned from the right book. The information in this folder is one of those rare things. Your father, Lemony (the subject of this file) and I have assembled it over some years, and we have quibbled regularly over which documents it should contain. It tells the story, in whole or in part, of someone whom your father and I love very much. If he is still alive when you are reading this (I hope he is), you should seek him out. He is a good man. You may wonder, reading this, why the story here contained is not one that you already know. The truth is, we did not want to explain all the secrets to you, not until you were older. Hopefully, we explained some of it before we died, or you have since found the right books. Otherwise, you will likely be very confused. Your father and I love you, always. Give our love to Klaus and Sunny. And Lemony, if you find him. 

All my love, 

Beatrice

A photograph. It is grainy and sepia toned, showing a young boy. He has a grin on his face, and is carrying a newspaper clutched to his chest. The only visible word from the headline reads SEA. He appears to be standing in front of a dark and mysterious forest, but it’s hard to tell. The back of the photograph has a note that reads ‘Lemony, Age 13’ 

A letter written in the scribbles of a teenage boy, reading as follows:

L, 

I’ve missed you more than I thought I would. Hope you come back soon. B misses you also, though she is refusing to admit it. 

Yours, 

BB

Another photograph, more recent, of two eighteen year olds clearly recognizable as Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire. They are both dressed for spelunking, and standing at the edge of a very frightening dark cave. Beatrice is waving, while Bertrand blows a kiss to the camera. The note on the back reads, ‘Bertrand and Beatrice, 18, missing Lemony, who is very busy with his new job’. 

A typewritten letter, carefully folded, reading:

BB, 

I have heard from O that I owe you congratulations. Here they are:

Congratulations.

Yours always,

L

Below this, is written in what is now recognisably Violet’s father’s handwriting:

L,  
You absolute ass, don’t believe anything O tells you, or at least do some primary source research first. The second B gets back, we’re going to have this conversation like mature adults so you can stop passing me pre-typed notes under the table like a passive aggressive lunatic. 

Yours always, 

BB

The words ‘yours always’ on this second letter are written in all capital letters, underlined three times, and circled. 

This letter is followed by another, also typed, which reads: 

B, 

When you first rejected my proposal, I was very upset. I am sure you can imagine why. It was not until I had read the reasons you so carefully enumerated for me that I understood I had the wrong reasoning entirely. I am sorry for reacting badly, but I must confess that next time you decline someone’s proposal because you would rather pursue a relationship with them, and the person they are also in love with, as opposed to with that third party but without your original lover, you should open with that fact, rather than burying it on the 117th page of a rejection novella. I was under the impression you were leaving me for BB for over a hundred pages. 

If you would forgive me, I would take you and BB out for dinner, as an apology, and possibly as a prelude to more. 

Yours in perpetuity, 

L 

A napkin, creased and slightly smudged with grease, contains a handwritten crossword puzzle and the answers, as well as a game of hangman (the answer, ‘epistolary’, guessed with only one wrong letter, ‘B’), and a note that reads, ‘The food is taking forever’. 

A poem, typed on the sort of very fine paper that belongs in a manuscript or a museum: 

I could take the stars from the sky;   
I would not,   
For you would not want me to.   
For they could not match-  
The splendor of your eyes.  
The warmth of your hands,   
On my hands,   
On my heart. 

A set of photos, taken one after the other, all of the boy, who is older now, but still distinctly the same person, wearing a clearly fake moustache and carrying four books under his arm. He has glasses, which seem realer and more natural than the moustache. He’s smiling at the person behind the camera, and in the third photo of the set, Violet’s father emerges. In the fourth, they are kissing passionately, books placed carefully on the ground at their feet.

A pencil drawing, of the same young man, now without the moustache but still with the glasses. He is posing in a robe, carrying a bouquet of Jonquils, and continuing to look love-struck. It’s titled, ‘Lemon-yellow Jonquils’, and signed BB in the bottom right hand corner. 

A letter, once more typed, on letter head advising that it belonged to the ‘Vocational Flower Deliverers’, reading as follows:

Beatrice, Bertrand,

My love for you does not grow weaker in your absence. I look forward to joining you soon, even if it will require me to put up with certain colleagues who I would prefer not to. However, despite the presence of these colleagues, this reunion of a sort will be an opportunity to gather all our friends in a way we have not in some years, and may not again. Accordingly, if we want to get married in the presence of our friends, we should consider doing it sooner rather than later. 

Yours, 

Lemony

Two letters, both handwritten, one in the hand of Beatrice Baudelaire again, simply reading:

Lemony, I would rather marry you in front of nobody but the leeches than in front of some of our colleagues. This is a terrible idea. 

Loving you none the less for your terrible ideas, 

B

The other in an entire foreign hand, reading:

Yes, you absolutely have my permission to ask Snicket to marry you. Though you should probably consider asking him first. 

S. Theodora 

There’s eleven different photographs in the set that follows. Some of them, Violet has seen before. They are from her parents’ wedding. The three Violet has seen before are all of Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire, and do not feature the rest of the wedding party at all. In the first of the photos Violet has not seen, her parents and Lemony are posing together. Lemony has his arms around her mother, while her father has an arm wrapped around Lemony and is holding one of her hands. Like all wedding photos, it is awkward and highly choreographed. Like the best wedding photos, they all seem happy regardless. This is followed by two sets of two photos, of Lemony with each of her parents, each set of one of them holding each other, and one of a kiss. The remaining three photos feature other members of the wedding party. Violet recognizes most of them as well. Uncle Monty, Aunt Jacqueline, the man who was killed in the Villlage of Fowl Devotees- Jacques Snicket his name was Jacques Snicket- and Kit Snicket. There is one photo that is simply those two, Lemony, and an older women who Violet does not know, but can only assume to be the S. Theodora from the previous letter. The resemblance between the three siblings is clear enough. S. Theodora does not look anything like them, but she has a hand on Lemony’s shoulder and he looks glad to have it there. The other two photos are, respectively, the entire wedding party, and Violet’s parents with their members of the party. Together, the set tells a story of three people who love each other, and are happy. 

There seems to be a gap between the wedding photographs and the next document. Perhaps because together, they had need for neither letters nor photographs. What follows this period of unification is a telegram, reading:

Hello heartbreakers STOP Good news for the first time in weeks STOP I will be making it home in time for the first snowfall STOP I expect there to be hot chocolate on the occasion of my return because I will be bringing some with me from my current location STOP Got a train to catch STOP XOXO LBS FULL STOP

Then another sketch, of Lemony with Violet’s mother. They’re curled up together on a sofa, each reading. Lemony’s book is titled ‘Return of the Beyond’, while Beatrice is reading the Collected Poems of an author whose name is obscured by her hand on the cover. This one is titled ‘Verbose Firelight Darlings’, and again signed BB. 

A very important letter, from Beatrice to Lemony, the body of which reads:

I don’t miss you any less for having seen you recently. I am writing to tell you the most wonderful news. I’m pregnant! It is probably B’s, given the timing, which is just as well. Someone needs to legally inherit that stupid fortune of his, after all. Lemony! I am so excited. I didn’t think I would be this excited! Also this nauseous, but that’s not as surprising. Everyone told me I would be nauseous. Bertrand is already talking about names. Wants to call it after a historical writer. You are to help me talk him out of that, and I will not hear otherwise. 

You’re going to be a father, Lemony!

The response is typed and terse. There must be letters in between, for it reads as the final statement in a bitter fight:

Beatrice, 

I’m sorry I can’t be the person you want me to be. I don’t know how to be a father. I can’t be a father. Any child of mine will be in danger, and it only grows by the day. Having to worry about Jacques and Kit suffering for my work is bad enough. I refuse to bring a child into the world at a time like this. If you and Bertrand insist on doing it anyhow, I refuse to be a conspirator. 

I’m sorry that I’m not the husband you deserve. Bertrand is. I love you both very much, and I always will. 

Lemony

The next letter is folded around a pressed violet, and written by Bertrand Baudelaire:

Lemony,

I’ve never seen Beatrice so furious, and she has never had such a good reason to be. You’re being an absolute ass, and we all know it. L, you were the one who wanted children first. You love children. I know that it seems dark and hopeless and scary right now. Believe me, I know. I was there. But if we give up every time it seems frightening and hopeless, then we shouldn’t even call ourselves volunteers. I understand if you’re needed in the field right now. I understand if it is too dangerous for you to go from being in the field to being with us often, or at all. I know that they’re looking for Beatrice and I. I know that they will always be looking for Beatrice and I, and that one day they may find us. I also know that you will do everything in your power to prevent that day from coming, so don’t you ever say that you are not the person we want, and not the husband we deserve. We love you, even when you are being a tremendous fool. You can’t make us stop caring about you by pretending to be somehow less than what you are. We love you, and even if you make us wait until the baby is eighteen or thirty, we’ll always want to see you. Always. 

Your husband, 

Bertrand 

P.S.   
We named her Violet. Beatrice thinks she looks like me. I think she looks more like you. Maybe she will end up looking like Beatrice, and we’ll never know.

This is followed by a series of letters, spanning the next decade and some, as well as a few photographs. Beatrice and Bertrand first with a young Violet, and then eventually Klaus and Sunny as well. Lemony, on a mountain side, hanging upside down from a tree, sitting at typewriter after typewriter. Getting older apart. It’s tragic. The letters are not nearly so hopeless. A few mention meetings between the trio. All seem to be part of a much larger correspondence, the rest of which is probably long burned. There are a few interesting tidbits, Lemony’s work for the VFD, anecdotes of the young Baudelaires, the general consensus that of the three children, Violet takes after Lemony the most- the last note from Beatrice points out that Lemony was at least as bookish as Klaus, and Sunny’s new biting habit is probably exactly what Lemony was like at her age, though it is agreed by all parties that neither of them are his biologically. She seems content, happy to write about the meaningless arguments and jokes piled up over almost thirty years of friendship and love.

The file ends with a note from Bertrand:

Violet, 

Your mother started this file, so it seems right that I put something at the end to finish it off. If you’re reading this first, please flip the file folder over and start from the other side. I’ll try and answer any questions you still have. You are probably wondering by now if you are, biologically, my daughter. We honestly don’t know, and I honestly don’t care. You are my daughter in every way that matters, and I love you. Always. Lemony does as well. I hope you’ve met him before getting this folder, but, knowing Lemony, I suspect that you won’t have. He never does know when to give in and make the choice that allows him a modicum of happiness. I’d tell you where to find him, but I suspect that unless we just died yesterday and you’re reading this letter very early, I haven’t the foggiest idea where to find him. I can promise you that Lemony would give his life to protect you (he is a Snicket, you must understand. If you ever meet Jacques and Kit, you’ll see what I mean.) You must be wondering why we never told you. The truth is, we kept our secrets so that you could have the free, normal life that none of us ever did. We didn’t want it to weigh on you the way it all weighed on us. But if it killed us, I’m sure you’ll want to know. I doubt my brilliant, curious little girl would want anything to escape her notice. Lemony will tell you everything, if you show him this note. He’ll feel far too guilty not to. 

I’m being more verbose than your mother for once! Would you have expected that? (Not as verbose as Lemony, but then, who is?) Well, what else to say? I love you and Klaus and Sunny all very much, and I am unbelievably proud of you. Never underestimate the power of a good book, always bring a towel with you (I learned that from a book once.), don’t use the first stall in a public washroom (that one was from a book too), believe in your own strength, keep your friends close and your family closer. Show this file to Sunny and Klaus. They deserve to know. 

Your father, 

Bertrand Baudelaire

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody talk to me about this TRAGEDY. It is sad. I cried and laughed while writing this which is I think exactly what Lemony Snicket would want me to do so there you go.


End file.
